Release Date: November 15, 2019 Length: 120 minutes Director/Writer Keiichi Kobayashi
Subs by Mich at Irozukusubs
Subs by Mich at Irozukusubs
Main Cast:
Hinako Sakurai as Nana Kano.... 18 year old senior in high school who is quite an introvert. She's also a young girl who constantly cuts her wrists but not to kill herself but to Nana her life wasn't worth living nor had any purpose until meeting Rei.
Shotaro Mamaiya as Rei Kosaka.... 19 year old senior in high school who is repeating the final year but it wasn't because he failed as Rei is a very smart boy. Though good looking he could care less about the other girls in his class and was just so disinterested in life, that is until he met Nana and what an unlikely pair they were.
The rest of the cast....
Yuri Tsunematsu as Jimiko.... 18 year old senior, older sister of Yachiyo. She's a very boring person who somehow became best friends with Kyapiko
Mayu Hotta as Kyapiko.... also an 18 year old senior who thinks she's the cutest girl on Earth. She constantly dumps her boyfriends before they can do it to her
Yumena Yanai as Nadeshiko.... high school freshman girl who is in love with Yachiyo
Yutaro as Yachiyo.... Jimiko's younger brother and the target of Nadeshiko's beating heart
Masaki Nakao as The Killer(?).... a teenage psycho who is really only in one scene but it's a very dramatic one towards the end
Been a long, long time since I wrote up a film review so bear with me. Took 125(!) screenshots which is easy to do in a two hour movie so have two parts and will try to keep each a medium length post. Often too say I need to keep reviews/recaps short, it's not because I don't like writing them but because I know what it's like to read through massive posts. Think this pair will be an easy read and the first segment will be about our two main characters. At the top is the trailer for the movie.
The second post will be mainly devoted to those two above, would say 90+%. So after introducing the pair in this post will discuss the other two stories in the movie. One of the stories was somewhat enjoyable while for the other pairing that wasn't the case, they did bring the film down a tad but luckily were only on screen for 25 of the 120 minutes. Our main two 'heroes' had about seventy minutes of screen time which is why they'll need the next post. At first thought it would have been better if they were on screen for the entire film but looking back on it don't think it would have worked out as well.
Two other tidbits before we get into the review and I do have a way of stretching things out. One is that the screenshots may not appear so bright but that's the way the movie was filmed, probably to give it a darker atmosphere though it wasn't a horror flick. Also the scenes went on for a long time, what I mean is that just one camera would follow a pair of characters which you don't see that often in films. Overall I did enjoy this movie quite a bit and went in a bit clueless on what it was about.
The man male star is above whose character's name is Rei though you may also see his last name Kosaka on occasion. Rei is nineteen, a year older than his classmates as he's repeating his senior year in high school. He never fully explained why or how it was possible but he didn't seem prepared to take the next step in life but does have plans to attend a university. Rei is such a stoic young man who is so uninterested in most things in the world, especially people and never saw him with a friend nor did he ever mention any. One day as school was ending there was a slight commotion as the class oddball Nana was digging through the trash looking for a dead bee a student had just thrown away.
Her presence piqued Rei's interest and he quickly followed this girl down the hallway, was she the first interesting person Rei may meet in high school? Interesting is not a good word to use for Nana as she really isn't but in a way she is as she's so different than the other students. Nana disliked insects but the thought of a bee not having a proper burial(!) was too much for her as she took the small insect and buried it in a school garden. Rei was a bit stunned at Nana's actions but also quite pleased to have met someone so different. He eventually bought the two of them ice cream and the pair ended up on the roof for their first meeting.
On the roof Nana started off by doing something a bit shocking which didn't faze Rei in the least. She took out a razor and made a few cuts on her left wrist and arm. Nana has been doing that for years and is the joke of the class for doing that. She doesn't know why she does it as it doesn't make her life any better, Nana kept saying she wanted to die but she's not the type of girl to have the courage to do it. Rei knew that so he said he would kill Nana(!) if it would please her though there's no way he could do such a deed. So began the relationship between the pair who never went on 'official dates' nor ever became boyfriend/girlfriend but in a way they were as after school they were glued to each other. That's their introduction and hope you can remember that for the next post, let's get to the other two pairs who had mini stories.
Really didn't care too much for the story involving the above pair of gals, they really had nothing to do with the main storyline. Above is Jimiko wearing the glasses, she's a very quiet girl who appears to be also very smart and somehow over the years became best friends with the other girl above, Kyapiko. To her she's the cutest girl in the entire world, many boys thought so too but not me. Kyapiko is very image conscious and always needs to have a boyfriend. However she never keeps one for a long time as she feels they'll eventually dump her so before that can happen Kyapiko often breaks up with them.
That's been going on for years and by the film's end the problem still remained. There is one boy who Kyapiko does like quite a bit who is college but he's wavering between seeing Kyapiko and another girl his own age. To help her through her down times which happen after she dumps a boy is her best friend Jimiko who I don't think has ever had a boyfriend. Those 'help sessions' usually take place at Jimiko's house as Kyapiko had lived on her own though that was never explained how it happened nor how she had the cash for rent. The two talking about Kyapiko's relationships went on for almost all of their scenes, at first it may have been okay but it did drag after a while. The movie was based on a manga so perhaps they were trying to stay true to the original story.
Though Kyapiko thought she was the most kawaii girl in the world her classmates didn't and one day after school were laughing to Jimiko about it. Kyapiko had been listening to the words outside of the classroom and thought even her best friend was putting her down. That wasn't the case as Jimiko stood up for her friend and to me was the best scene involving the pair. Both were seniors in Nana's and Rei's class but never saw then together. Jimiko's parents own a small store and the family lives in the back, she has a brother two years younger named Yashiyo. When we first met him he was looking at a video of an older student who kept saying he wanted to kill his girlfriend, no spoiler but a killing by this unnamed psycho will take place. Know I didn't get into the story between Jimiko and Kyapiko too deeply but it wasn't all that interesting save for a few moments but the screenshots at the bottom show most of what happened with the pair.
The third story was kind of enjoyable, a bit sappy at times but kind of fun to help ease the semi bleakness of the other two stories. It involved Yumiko's younger brother Yachiyo and his classmate above Nadeshiko. This girl has such a crush on the young man and never understood why. Yachiyo seemed like a decent chap but there was nothing overly special about him but there was something that attracted Nadeshiko's interest to no end. For many months she's been begging him to be her boyfriend, every time she sees him the first words out of her mouth are 'I Like You' which became kind of a running joke between the two. It appeared Yachiyo would never end rejecting Nadeshiko until one day when he told her 'yes' after she showed him tickets to a film he wanted to see.
The pair did have a fine time at the film, been checking but haven't been able to find out where this movie was shot. That's because Yachiyo escorted Nadeshiko home afterwards and of all places she lived at a farm. Could tell the location wasn't Tokyo all along or any other major city as there wasn't a horde of people on the streets. At her house Yachiyo did make a confession which was that for some time had had liked Nadeshiko quite a bit too but for an odd reason he had to hold his feelings in. That's because Yachiyo thought if he ever said he liked her then Nadeshiko may think that she hit her 'goal' and then leave him alone which made perfect sense to me though not to her at first. But she had zero thoughts of leaving her first love and soon enough the pair were going steady. Their story was a tad fluffy but kind of enjoyable as the other two stories as mentioned were a bit bleak.
Those scenes with the two pairs actually happened later on in the story but were woven into the present day scenes with Nana and Rei. May sound a tad confusing the way I wrote it and we learned that in the final two scenes. One was at a funeral that Jimiko and Kyapiko attended for a classmate, can't say who until the next post. The other scene which was the movie's final one took place on the day Nadeshiko had first confessed to Yachiyo, of course she was rejected when it happened. She was quite down, while sitting by herself on a river bank she took out a knife and was about to cut her arms. But who should saunter by but the university student(!) Nana who noticed what was about to happen and rushed over to talk to the young girl. Nana did convince Nadeshiko to put the cutter away and showed the girl why as she rolled up the sleeves of her arms. It was the only time that the two appeared together but that chat did instill some confidence into Nadeshiko who never stopped confessing her love to Yachiyo. So those scenes with the two dating actually took place after the film's final scene.
That concludes this first part and the next one will just focus more on the relationship of Nana and Rei so it'd be important to remember what was told about them in the first segment. So far this may seem like a fairly slow moving and uninteresting film. Slow moving for sure but for the most part it was rather interesting or actually the scenes between the two leads were. Will end off with plenty of screenshots for the other two pairs, did describe their two stories well enough but did leave some details out which you'll find in the screenshots. No use in talking about every single event that took place as not to spoil it if you're planning on viewing the film.
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